Correlation among crystal defects, depletion regions and junction leakage in sub-30-nm gate-length MOSFETs: Direct examinations by electron holography

Electron-holography electrostatic-potential analysis, in conjunction with transmission-electron-microscopy crystal-defect analysis, revealed how halo-implantation and millisecond annealing (MSA) conditions affect defect distributions at source/drain junctions in scaled MOSFETs. The key findings of this analysis are as follows: first, nanometer-scale defects exist at the junction near the gate, second, the junction leakage current is determined by the near-gate peripheral component, third, the number of defects can be reduced by adequate thermal processing, thereby reducing the junction leakage current.